Death of a Hero
by Cattatra
Summary: Harry's sacrifice of Eternity was not in vain


**Death of a Hero**

**A/N: Not a particularly happy story. However I needed to write it. Most of the quotes were borrowed from His Dark Materials by Philip Pulman who borrowed them himself, some are entirely mine, and others I can't remember. **

Harry looked up with loathing. Wormtail leered down at him. He was taken from the bindings on the floor and dragged, naked and beaten, through stone halls. He was kicked onto the floor in a great room and lay there, nearly fainting from pain.

"The great Harry Potter. For a week you have been my honoured guest. I hope you enjoyed my hospitality?"

A floating sensation. _Say 'yes master'. Agree. The pain will end._

"Yes master." his mouth seemed disconnected from the rest of him. To his surprise some of the pain did disappear. He looked up at the man in front of him.

"Ah, you finally see you cannot defeat me then?"

"Yes." Harry said quietly, not waiting for the spell.

"Shall I end it for you, Harry? Do you want to die and leave this world defenceless?"

"I died years ago." Harry said, spitting blood onto the floor. "I was never allowed to lie down though."

"What do you mean?"

"Dumbledore. He knew only I could kill you. He sent me to the Muggles, to make me docile and appreciative of the magical world. He let you kill my parents. He knew Peter was the secret keeper. He knew what happened. And he wouldn't let me live a normal life in case I didn't want to defeat you, in case I rebelled against him, in case I choose to follow you."

"Would you follow me?"

"If he had let me grow up in a loving environment, no. I would gladly fight you with every breath. I'm tired of fighting though. I'm tired of living in pain all the time, from my uncle, from the magical world, from everyone. It hurts."

"What if I said I could take the pain away? Make it all fresh, give you a new life?"

Harry looked at him in shock. "Would you do that?"

Voldemort smiled and raised his wand. Harry watched it as though it was something wonderful.

"No."

Harry smiled, the first happy smile since the day his parents died.

"Thank you."

"AVADA KEDAVRA TEMPUS!"

* * *

Three hours later Harry Potter arrived during dinner. He landed, clothed, in the middle of the Great Hall. There were shocked screams as he got shaking to his feet. He held a piece of parchment in his hand and it was obvious he had several broken bones. He limped painfully to the teachers table where he dropped the parchment in front of Dumbledore. Then he gasped and slid to the floor. 

"No… point…" he gasped, looking at the ceiling as Madam Pomfrey rushed to his side. "I…died… three hours… ago…" he closed his eyes as a coolness entered his veins. It did little to relieve the pain. "I… killed him… though. He's… gone… for good. Tell… tell them… I'm sorry, would you? I can't live any more. I've got… less than a day. Twenty one hours… to live. Sounds like a movie, doesn't it? Heh. I can't see. It's all… gone dark. Maybe… I won't last… another hour. Tell them… I'm sorry. And I love them. Oh god, it hurts! Why can't… I just die? Dumbledore… you read it yet?"

"Yes Harry."

"Good. Where are you?" a hand touched his. "Huh. Cool. You know? Dieing isn't that bad. Sure, people… get left… behind… but I'll see them… again. I wish…"

"What do you wish Harry?" Dumbledore's voice was soft.

"I wish…"

They never found out what Harry Potter wished. He died moments after this moment. He was buried six days later. It was discovered then how little anyone knew Harry Potter, even his best friends. It seems that shortly after the rise of Voldemort that he made a will. He detailed his funeral in great detail, and seemed to have put a lot of thought and effort into it. This film was played during it, taken on his uncles video camera during the summer holidays after his fifth year.

The camera comes into focus slowly. Harry is sitting in front of it, eyes flicking from the camera to the door, and then back to the camera.

"_I had to nick this from my uncle for the night. Ok, I am Harry James Potter. If you're watching this then I better be dead, else my plan won't work. In the middle of October I am going to let Voldemort capture me. I found a spell in my mums' old trunk that would make sure that if he uses Avada Kedavra on me he will die. Unfortunately so will I. Dumbledore told me at the end of last year there was no other way, that one of us would kill the other. This way I know we're both gonna die, and he can't stop it. _

"_I don't mind about dieing. I realise I've been dead all my life, but that Dumbledore wouldn't let me go to my grave. I can't blame him, but that doesn't mean I don't resent him for it. _

"_Anyway, this isn't a lets blame Dumbledore session. It's a lets say goodbye to everyone session. _

"_So goodbye. Into the abyss of hell I go, past the guard that stands watch. I shall take my Death in hand and follow where it leads me finally, to the boats across the lake, across the lake unto the door, and finally, when granted entry, I shall go through, willingly, into hell, dragging my demon behind me. I shall remain there for eternity, holding the beast from the innocents of Earth. _

"_Each man is in his Spectre's power until the Arrival of that hour when his Humanity awake And cast his Spectre into the Lake_.

"_But I wish…"_

_The camera cuts off here. It restarts after a small piece of static. Harry is wearing different clothes now and has a black eye and bloody lip. His glasses are broken but he manages to squint into the view finder. _

"_Goodbye."_

That is the last record of Harry Potter. To anyone's knowledge he remains in hell, as he said, keeping Voldemort from returning to our world again.

O that it were possible we might but hold some two days' conference with the dead…

_Excerpt from the report written by Aurour Ronald Bilius Weasley on the seventeenth of November, 2004, best friend of Harry Potter. He died two days later along with his wife, Hermione Jane Weasley nee Granger, the second of Harry Potter's best friends during the attack on the Ministry of Magic. They lay together with their best friend in the cemetery on Hogwarts ground along with those who risked their lives in the war against Voldemort. _

_Albus Dumbledore died three weeks after Harry Potter. _

_Alastor Moody died seven months after Harry Potter._

_Rubeus Hagrid died eleven months after Harry Potter at the hands of giant haters. His half brother Gwarp died with him._

_Molly and Arthur Weasley died seventeen years after Harry Potter in each others arms, in the plague begun by Muggles._

_Severus Snape died twenty nine years after Harry Potter, poisoned by the Dark Mark upon his arm. _

_Minerva McGonagall died seventy three years after Harry Potter._

_Bilius Weasley died seventy four years after Harry Potter in the siege on Gringotts (London)._

_Charlie Weasley died one hundred and ninety five years after Harry Potter._

_Fred Weasley died one hundred and ninety eight years 365 daysafter Harry Potter._

_George Weasley died one hundred and ninety nine years exactlyafter Harry Potter._

_He was the last to be buried in the Hogwarts graveyard. _

_One hundred and seven years after Harry Potter died, Ginevra Weasley died. She never married. May she now rest in peace with her loved one._

_To this day we, the decedents of the Last War children, do not know what it is that Harry Potter wished. After much speculation, and from reading the diaries of our great grand parents and others alive at that time we come to only one conclusion as to what Harry Potter would have wishe-_

_This report finishes here. The person writing it was found dead at her desk the next day. All over the world the Last War children died that day. The cause is unknown, but we fear it bodes ill for the world. We pray that what we fear has not come to pass, and that Harry Potter holds hell against Him still. _

Thousands of people were coming towards him. Their faces were grim and their minds sure. He sweated as he felt the gates behind him grind open that little piece more. Then the others were with him and he knew them all, knew them in his very bones. Despite the grey hair and brittle bones contrasting against his youthful figure he recognised them all.

Together they shut the gates that Harry had held for two hundred years.

"What did you wish Harry?" he looked at the mild eyes that gazed into his.

"I wish…

…I didn't have to go."

* * *

Please review. 

Disclaimer; I didnt put this at the top because I felt it would spoil the piece somewhat, but I do not own Harry Potter at all, nor the quotes here that other people wrote. I claim mine, but I can't remember which are mine at the moment, not off the top of my head.


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